Talk:Stephen Hawking

Addition to Selected publications -> films and series

"Into the Universe, with Stephen Hawking" is listed, but is not an actual link, it only has a citation to the link. "Into the Universe, with Stephen Hawking" should be made into an actual link. Here is what you can type to do so; <a href="http://dsc.discovery.com/tv/stephen-hawking/about/about.html">Into the Universe, with Stephen Hawking</a>

Minor addition to Discovery Show

http://dsc.discovery.com/tv/stephen-hawking/ is the link to his new show on the Discovery Network, and should be included with the rest of the links. Thanks.

Fonseca Prize Typo

"Fonseca Prize" appears as "Fonseca Price" on this page. Thanks. Sam Blackburn (Graduate Assistant to Stephen Hawking)

disability: therapy Steven Hawkings

C7/T4 simply for posture, re-uptake, via phrenic nerve and scalp, respectively,. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.178.67.186 (talk) 11:33, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

Disability and interface

According to Hakwing's own site (http://www.hawking.org.uk/) he interfaces with an IBM computer running Equalizer™(Word Plus Inc.). This allows him to stop a cursor going from left to right, top to bottom on a specific word or letter, by pressing a switch in his hand. Sentences assembled in this way are made into speech files by a synthesizer from Speech+ (NeoSpeech). Sentences and lectures can be saved and executed on demand. 16/12/2011 11.48 UTC

There was some coverage of that today, on Radio 4's program Dear Professor Hawking. Seems that the speech synth is sufficiently legacy to still be based on a PC ISA card. There are concerns over the ongoing support of this hardware, and the very distinctive voice it gives to Professor Hawking. Andy Dingley (talk) 14:04, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Good Article

Hi all,

I've been looking over the page and I think it would make an excellent candidate for putting through the Wikipedia:Good_articles process, I've not been involved with editing the article before (although I'm very happy to be involved in the process) - would involved editors be happy with it being put forward? Failedwizard (talk) 18:14, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Having looked at the contributors list - it looks like this is one of those beautiful wikipedia articles that has grown my many many people making the occasional edit, rather than by one editor really pushing at it. I'm going to boldly put it forward for GA :) let me know if this causes any problems.... Failedwizard (talk) 14:44, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

External links

Not entirely sure what purpose these links in the external links section are serving to the reader - (I think they'll be useful for editors though) would anyone object to their removal for the time being? Failedwizard (talk) 14:57, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Dated

• Stephen Hawking says universe not created by God
• Hawking celebrates own brief history, 7 January 2002, BBC
• "Leaping the Abyss", interview in Reason by Gregory Benford 2002-04-01
• An audio interview with Stephen Hawking (MP3 format) from Hour 25 2002-03-24
• Black holes turned "inside out", 22 July 2004, BBC
• Return of the time lord, Interview about "A Brief History of Time", 27 September 2005, The Guardian.
• Stephen Hawking touches on God and science – Physicist says Pope John Paul told scientists not to study universe's origins msnbc June 2006
• Press Release from the Catholic League on misquote of Pope by Hawking 2006-06-16
• BBC interview 2008-12-05

See also > new concept

I would like to suggest the *See also* section to include links to several inspirational public figures with disabilities. I know Stephen is a genius and epic and brilliant physicist, period. However we all know it is only because of his coping with ALS and disability he is inspirational. For example equally genius and epic Edward Witten can only inspire physics and mathematics lovers, but not everyone on this planet like Stephen does.

If not in the See also section, maybe a new one could be created. Ideas? Any feedback is most welcome.

Vladimir

-- See also --

• Jessica Cox, motivational speaker and world's first licensed armless pilot.
• Stephen Hawking, theoretical physicist, cosmologist and survivor of ALS.
• Patrick Henry Hughes, musician born blind and unable to fully utilize his limbs.
• Hirotada Ototake, sports writer and survivor of Tetra-amelia syndrome.
• Mile Stojkoski, humanitarian and wheelchair marathon runner.
• Nick Vujicic, motivational speaker and survivor of Tetra-amelia syndrome.

This seems to me to be a recipe for an endless list of disabled people that random editors happen to admire. I'm afraid it would attract endless peacocking and subjective arguments as to who should and should not be included and is not what an encyclopedia is for. And do you really want to say that Hawking is only inspirational for being disabled, rather than for his work in theoretical physics? Britmax (talk) 10:19, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Agree with Britmax. This would just end up a cruft magnet. Hawking is a notable scientist. The fact that he is severly disabled is not the primary source of his notability - it is actually entirely irrelevant. If it was the source of his notability it would mean all people with ALS would be notable. This idea is a direct threat to this article's current GA status and it's achieving FA status. (BTW, I came to this article from WikiProject Disability) Roger (talk) 10:49, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

I, too, think the idea should not be implemented, for the reasons stated by Britmax. Binksternet (talk) 15:41, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ So let me take a slightly different position - Hi User:Pandovski, and thank you for bringing your suggestion forward, I don't know if there are any specific Wikipedia policies or guidelines either against or in favor of this, so it's a reasonable thing to suggest. Also, I hadn't seen any of those examples before, thanks for bringing them up - I've added the {{{WikiProject Disability}}} template to them so that editors who do a lot of editing of disability related articles can help out with their development. I think the consensus here is pretty strongly against having such a section in this article, but there might be scope for adding the examples to some other list - feel free to swing by Wikipedia:WikiProject_Disability and raise it there.  :) Fayedizard (talk) 15:55, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

publications

I'm not sure that the 'Notable publications' section looks ideal... how about we cut it down a bit? particularly given that most of these books have their own articles...

Test below - what do people think?

Technical

• "Singularities in Collapsing Stars and Expanding Universes" with Dennis William Sciama, (1969)
• The Large Scale Structure of Space-Time, (1973)
• The Nature of Space and Time, (1996)
• The Large, the Small, and the Human Mind, (1997)
• Information Loss in Black Holes], Cambridge University Press, (2005)
• God Created the Integers: The Mathematical Breakthroughs That Changed History, (2005)

Popular

• A Brief History of Time, (1988)
• Black Holes and Baby Universes and Other Essays, (1994)
• The Universe in a Nutshell, (2001)
• On The Shoulders of Giants. The Great Works of Physics and Astronomy, (2002)
• A Briefer History of Time, (2005)
• The Grand Design, (2010)

Children's fiction

These are co-written with his daughter Lucy.

• George's Secret Key to the Universe, (2007)
• George's Cosmic Treasure Hunt, (2009)

Looks cleaner to me Abhishikt (talk) 03:29, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Important to realize he is has interests other than Science.

There have been reports of him going to "Swingers Clubs" (confirmed by Cambridge University), and it is a fact that he has previous been to at least 1 "strip-club" previously:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2106025/Stephen-Hawking-visits-California-swingers-sex-club.html?ITO=1490

This should be mentioned in his autobiography appropriately, to prove he still has "human" traits and is not a nerd entirely.

Alex — Preceding unsigned comment added by 101.169.134.100 (talk) 11:53, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

I don't mind including this if we get good sources. However, the Daily Mail is not a good source for a WP:BLP. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 12:41, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

I Agree, the daily mail does not have a reputation for fact-checking as required in reliable secondary sources therefore it should not be used. IRWolfie- (talk) 12:57, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Hi Alex, in addition to the sourcing issues pointed out, we'd also have balance and weight issues as well. You might want to be a little bit careful with your phrasing... "prove he still has "human" traits" is rather careless phrasing in this contex, and might polarise a debate... Fayedizard (talk) 14:46, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

True. Maybe I should have said ..."prove that he still is still a raging hetrosexual with interests other than Science, which he is well noted for". Cheers, Alex — Preceding unsigned comment added by 125.7.44.98 (talk) 22:56, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

We already tell the reader that Hawking has been married two times and has a daughter. There's not much call for salacious details here, a violation of WP:UNDUE, since Hawking's sexuality is not what he is known for. The merest bits of normal encyclopedic content are good enough: wives, children. Binksternet (talk) 00:27, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Fair enough. I actually wasn't aware of the concept of the WP:UNDUE keystone until now, and a new entry for tabloid events in any Wiki page certainly do not meet its conditions.

Religion

The article quotes Hawking who says "the universe is governed by the laws of science. The laws may have been decreed by God, but God does not intervene to break the laws." http://www.reuters.com/article/2008/10/31/us-pope-hawking-idUSTRE49U6E220081031?feedType=RSS&feedName=scienceNews

That quote "The laws may have been decreed by God, but God does not intervene to break the laws" is a nearly perfect example of a deist belief, however the source doesn't mention the word. Would it be inappropriate (Original research) to make that comparison? Would it be more appropriate to link a relevant portion of the quote to the deism page? Or is neither action appropriate? Rainpat (talk) 16:29, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

That would be original research and directly contadicts the other equally well sourced quotes in which he rejects religion and clearly identifies himself as atheist. So IMHO it would be best not to add a link to deism at all. Roger (talk) 16:44, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

Edit request on 18 March 2012

In the section 4.1 (Acclaim) Please change sentence 2 which is factually incorrect. The sculpture unveiled in Cape Town at the African Institute of Mathematics in May 2008 was created by sculptor Eve Shepherd and is a maquette for an over life sized monument commissioned by Cambridge University which will be cited in a contemplation garden near to Professor Hawkings Office and is not a replica of the sculpture created by Ian Walters (deceased) which was unveiled at Cambridge University in 2007.

http://www.techdigest.tv/2008/10/stephen_hawking.html http://www.sheffieldtelegraph.co.uk/lifestyle/hawking_sculpture_1_257215 http://www.eveshepherd.com 81.106.124.62 (talk) 18:11, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

Not done: I can find no mention of Cape Town in any of the sources you provided. Can you provide a source which includes that detail? Thanks, Celestra (talk) 20:21, 18 March 2012 (UTC)